Long Meg and her Daughters
The stone circle " Long Meg and her Daughters " and "Little Meg" are located in the east of the Eden Valley, on a gently sloping hill northeast of Little Saltkeld and south of Glassonby in Cumbria in England .
Long Meg and her Daughters
"Long Meg and her Daughters" (Long Meg and her daughters) is one of the largest stone circles in the British Isles . It is said to be one of the oldest and to date from the late Neolithic .
Long Meg
Long Meg is a 3.8 m high, nine tons weighing outlier ( English outlier ) made of red sandstone , which stands about 18 m from the entrance to the circle. On the side of the Long Meg facing the circle, there are rock carvings consisting of cup-and-ring markings , concentric circles and spirals .
The daughters
The stone circle (the daughters) forms an oval 109 by 94 m in diameter, made of 69 granite boulders , some of which have fallen over. The access to the circle, through a pair of stones, which lies a little outside the circle, is in the southwest.
More discoveries
In recent years, an enclosure with a ditch has been discovered in the north of the district, which explains the flattening in the northern part of the district. Apparently the builders of the district have respected an older earth monument. To the west of the circle, aerial photographs have revealed the existence of a cursus that may also be older than the circle, while ancient reports tell of a pair of cairns within the circle that were likely younger than the circle. It is unclear whether the "Daughters" and "Long Meg" are contemporary.
Little Meg
Although Little Meg (also called Maughanby Circle) is sometimes referred to as a stone circle, it is the remainder of a circular late Bronze Age cairn. It originally consisted of a ruined central stone box covered by a low mound of stones and earth, which was surrounded by curbs (which form the surviving remains). The ten or eleven remaining stones are about 800 m east of "Long Meg and her daughters" on the edge of a field. The curb circle is about 8.5 m in diameter, although the position of the stones has likely changed in the past. The stone box contained an urn burial .
Two rock carvings were discovered. One is in the Penrith Museum. The one left in place shows a clockwise spiral on the left, connected to concentric circles on the right. The design is about 80 cm in diameter.
literature
- Aubray Burl: A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany . London 2005.
- Homer Sykes: Mysterious Britain - Fact and Folklore George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. 1993 p. 43
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 43 '40.6 " N , 2 ° 40' 3.5" W.